Site Mobile Navigation

Second Sunni Mosque Is Blown Up in Basra

BAGHDAD, June 16 — Hooded gunmen clad in black blew up another Sunni mosque in the southern city of Basra today after ordering the police officers at the mosque to flee, and despite a curfew imposed by Iraq’s central government, witnesses and security officials said.

The blast at the Al-Ashrah Al-Mubashra mosque in central Basra — the second Sunni mosque razed in as many days — suggested that Shiite militias south of the capital have rejected calls for restraint from Iraqi leaders after explosions Wednesday toppled two minarets at a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra.

The latest attack immediately heightened tensions between Sunni and Shiite officials, and for some, seemed to confirm that Iraq’s central government has lost the ability to exert much influence, not just on areas of the Kurdish North, but also majority-Shiite strongholds in the South.

“The security situation is out of control in the city,” said Wael Abdul Latif, a Shiite former governor of Basra and member of the Iraqi List, a moderate party headed by Ayad Allawi. “The power of the state is weak, and the forces of the Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry are confused and afraid even though handing such matters requires toughness.”

The attack occurred around 8 a.m., witnesses and a Basra security official said, when at least a half-dozen men approached the mosque in four vehicles, including a minibus loaded with explosives. They said the gunmen told the Iraqi security forces guarding the mosque to leave, which they did without resistance, then the gunmen packed the building with explosives.

After the blast collapsed the building into dust and rubble, the gunmen celebrated and cheered, according to several witnesses who refused to give their names for fear of reprisals. The police, they said, did not immediately respond.

Sunni religious leaders and politicians said the attack reflected the troubling militia infiltration of the Iraqi Army and police departments and the risks of relying on a mostly Shiite force to protect a country of many sects and ethnicities.

“This tells us that there is a huge penetration into the security forces in Basra by militias, and this was admitted by the emergency force commander there,” said Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, head of the Sunni Endowment, which oversees the country’s Sunni mosques. “If the army ignores the militia and lets them enter the mosques and do what they want then it is a catastrophe. And if the army knows what they aim at doing then it is a bigger catastrophe.”

It was unclear today whether the defiance in Basra would spread. The majority-Shiite city is dominated by several rival Shiite groups, who periodically fight for control, yielding what officials and residents describe as a high degree of disorder.

Photo

A boy walks in the rubble after a Sunni mosque was destroyed in Basra.Credit
Atef Hassan/Reuters

A government-imposed curfew that prohibited vehicles from traveling on the city’s roads has not been universally enforced, residents said. Cars sped by police checkpoints today without concern.

Meanwhile, in other cities like Baghdad, curfews since Wednesday’s attack in Samarra have largely minimized high-profile sectarian reprisals. A handful of Sunni mosques have been shot at or bombed, but there have been no reports of casualties — far less violence than what occurred after the first attack on the Samarra shrine last year.

Today, as Iraqi security forces north of Samarra conducted raids, in which four people were killed and 20 insurgents were arrested, two of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite clerics issued statements lamenting the loss of Muslim shrines rather than calling for vengeance.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Hamid al-Khafaf, a spokesman for the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, said: “His eminence strongly condemns and denounces the attacks on the mosques of Talha Bin Ubeidallah and Al-Ashra Al-Mubashara in Basra. He calls on all citizens to prevent, as much as they can, such attacks on all shrines and mosques.”

The populist cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi militia was blamed for much of the violence that followed last year’s attack on the Samarra shrine, called on his supporters to hold a peaceful march to the site next month. His latest message was another example of Mr. Sadr’s makeover from sectarian rabble-rouser to nationalist demagogue. There were hints today that some Sunni and Shiite officials not typically aligned with Mr. Sadr would follow the pattern.

Mr. Samaraie of the Sunni Endowment asked Iraqis to “be united and love each other and block the road before those holding foreign agendas.”

Mr. Latif, the Shiite former Basra governor, said that Shiites were playing right into the hands of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia and other Sunni groups believed to be responsible for the Samarra attacks.

“Al Qaeda did not attack Talha or Al-Ashrah mosques but those who did are following the ideas of Al Qaeda,” he said.

He added that Basra’s separation from the central government’s rule of law would only hurt the area.

“Let’s assume that one of the neighboring countries, Iran or Saudi Arabia, invaded Basra,” he said. “Would the militias be able to stand up against them? They won’t last for an hour.”

Iraqi employees from The New York Times contributed reporting from Basra. Ali Adeeb, Khalid al-Ansary and Ahmad Fadam contributed reporting from Baghdad.